DIY Audio Projects Forum

Welcome to the DIY Audio Projects Message Forum. Use these forums to discuss Hi-Fi audio and to share your DIY Audio Projects. Registration is free and required to post messages and view the file attachments. Registration will only take a minute and registered users do not see any advertisements. After you have completed the online registration process, check your email (including spam/junk folder) for the verification email to activate your account. New members are under moderation - so your posts will not be visible until approved by a moderator. See the Read Me 1st, Forum RULES and Forum FAQ to get started on the forum.

I just completed my filament supply prototyping work and have confirmed the ability of the LT1085 to handle the cold heater startup. I also learned a few things about the regulator and the supply circuit in the process. Here is the prototype board I built to test my circuit.

Attachment:

filament supply prototype.jpg

And here is the prototype supply putting out 1.2A (the rated 300B filament supply current) into a resistive load.

Attachment:

filament supply in use.jpg

I verified the ability of the supply to startup with a cold heater using a 5U4GB (the only 5V filament tube I had handy). It started up fine but couldn't development more then 4.2v at that high a current level. However, the 1.2A load is no problem for this circuit. The total ripple also looked good as expected.

I am currently setting down the final circuit and going over the thermal design parameters. I should have a complete write up in a day or so. Then I'll post the entire set of cleaned up amp schematics.

One more item of note. It looks like I made another tiny error in my transformer specs. I failed to take the current derating for the full wave bridge into account. If I do this, it looks like we need 2A transformer windings, not 1.5A. (1.2A/0.62=1.94A) This means that we need a Hammond 266L12B or 266L12 instead of the 266K12. Sorry Mark. I hope this doesn't cause a problem.

This post has a file attachment. Please login or register to access it. Only Registered Members may view attached files.

So is this more of a "having trouble getting parts" type of problem or a "I don't want any sand in my amp" kind of problem?

We can still do a redesign for balanced AC heaters, however the output noise level will not be nearly as good. I'm thinking maybe more like maybe -70dBVrms with a twenty turn balance trimmer on each filament. This may be noticeable on quieter music tracks.

OK. Not good but we can cope. The original filament tranni arrived to day in Australia and has been shipped to me already. I have now ordered the 266L12. It may take three or four weeks to get here. The power tranni has been ordered from AVAT this may take two weeks anyhow.

Once I learned that modern 8 pin industrial relays use the same sockets as octal base tubes, finding octal sockets has been a snap. Any Google search on "8 Pin Octal DIN" should turn up multiple sources. I like to use them on my prototyping boards because connections can be made and changed so quickly.

As I intimated previously, I have completed the filament power supply design for the 300Bs. The 300B filament supply has to do several things. First it has to supply two separate supplies of 5vdc@1.2A, one for each output channel. We decided on DC filament supplies for the 300Bs because we are going for a very high fidelity amp. Balanced AC secondaries simply can’t provide the ripple rejection necessary for high fidelity. Secondly, the supply has to maintain at least 70dB of isolation between the two supplies (The standard stereo channel separation specification used in most high fidelity equipment). This is to ensure that channel crosstalk is kept to a minimum. Without this isolation, the channels would bleed together to some extent, and the width of the amp’s perceived soundstage would suffer greatly. The third is that the supplies must not pump “too much” (definition to follow) noise into the signal chain.

The first requirement is easy to meet. We simply design two identical supplies, one for each channel. The second requirement is a little more difficult to meet. If the supplies are passive, then getting 35dB of isolation in each supply is going to be difficult. This implies separate transformers. However a single transformer with dual secondaries may be used if we use an active regulator to provide additional ripple rejection. The third requirement is easy to specify. The supplies must meet the noise requirements of the B+ supply. However, this may be easier said than done.

Working backwards, we’ll deal with the ripple specification first. The ripple from the filament supply is superimposed on the cathode bias voltage; in our case ~71v. Now the ripple specification from the power stage is -90dBv (or ~0.003%). Applying this to the cathode bias voltage yields a ripple spec for the filament supplies of Vr = 71*10^(-90/20) = 2.2mV. Obtaining this ripply level using only rectification and passive filtering is going to be almost impossible. However, using a modern linear (i.e. non-switching) voltage regulator it should be possible to meet this. In addition, most linear regulators provide excellent line regulation such that getting the channel separation should be possible as well. Finally, getting 5v@1.2A out of a modern linear regulator is easy.

So, we have arrived at a set of dc supplies using modern linear regulators, running off of separate secondaries on the same transformer. It’s time to select some components. The first should be what regulator to use. Now one of the things to keep in mind about tube filaments is that when cold, the presented resistance is about 10% of what it is when the filaments are up to temperature. This means that whatever regulator we choose must be able to effectively start up with this very low resistance and must current limit without “crowbar-ing” back to some low voltage state. We also need a regulator designed to operate with a very low input-output voltage differential (i.e. a “low dropout” regulator). This is for two reasons; first, we want to limit the voltage differential to limit the power dissipated by the regulator (to limit thermal design problems) and second, because we will likely be using 6.3vac filament transformers which when rectified and filtered will supply less then 7.9v (i.e. 2.9v max regulator input-output differential). An excellent regulator that meets all of these requirement is the Linear Technologies LT1085 low dropout 3A adjustable linear regulator. (http://www.linear.com/pc/productDetail.jsp?navId=H0,C1,C1003,C1040,C1055,P1283) Line regulation is better then 70dBv so channel isolation shouldn’t be a problem.

For the rectifier, the ability to attach a heat-sink will be important. The current of 1.2A means that the regulator may well be dissipating 1.2W. Also seeing as how the primary filter cap will be relatively large (~6800µf) the startup surge current will be high and the conduction angle will be small. I settled on the Micro Commercial Components GBU4A. (http://61.222.192.61/mccsemi/up_pdf/GBU4A-GBU4M(GBU).pdf) This is a 4 amp 50volt bridge rectifier with a 150A surge rating, 1v forward drop, and a case with a heat-sink mounting hole.

Finally, for the transformer, I chose the Hammond 266L12B (or the 266L12). This is a dual secondary 6.3v 2A (2.5 for the 266L12) filament transformer. The 300B heater current load of 1.2A with derating requires at least a 2A secondary. The final circuit is shown in the following figure.

Attachment:

Schematic Fliament Final.png

The circuit includes a trimmer for setting the final filament voltage and the primary can be wired for either 240v or 120v mains (50Hz or 60Hz). The supplies are not grounded except at AC via the 300B cathode bypass capacitors. Also, the positive side of the supply is connected to the same side of the filament as the cathode resistor and bypass capacitor such that the DC supply does not artificially affect the bias on the 300Bs.

There is one more thing to discuss with this supply; the thermal design parameters. Using the stated Vf of the GBU4A from the data sheet we get a power dissipation of 1.2W. Using the bridge Vf we can get a worst case regulator dissipation. The worst case input voltage is Vin=6.3v*sqrt(2)-1=7.9v which gives a power dissipation of (7.9v-5v)*1.2A=3.48W. These “back of the envelope” numbers indicate that a more complete thermal check is in order.

Starting with the GBU4 I have made the following assumptions. Total dissipation is 1.2W at load. I am going to allow a maximum ambient temperature (where the rectifier is located) of 75˚C (167˚F). This is actually a pretty standard design number for vented enclosures without forced air cooling. I am also using a thermal resistance for the case to whatever heat sink used of 1.5˚C/W. This is reasonable for a plastic case to anodized aluminum heat sink using a good quality thermally conductive paste. Finally. I am assuming a junction to ambient thermal resistance of 50˚C/W for the rectifier without a heat-sink. This is also a pretty typical number for plastic cases of this type. The results of the thermal calculations are shown in the following spreadsheet.

Attachment:

Thermal Design GBU4A.png

You’ll notice that with these assumptions, the maximum thermal resistance of a heat sink to ambient is ~38˚C/W. For my prototype board I used a Comair Rotron 822202B00000 heat-sink with a thermal resistance = 13˚C/W. (http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=5990351) This gave almost 25˚C/W margin in my design. And given that it was in open air, this may even be rated as overkill. However, please note that the maximum allowed thermal resistance junction to ambient is 41.67˚C/W which is less then the 50˚C/W without a heat-sink so, even at this load, a heat sink of some type is required.

For the regulator, the design is a little more critical. I used much the same assumptions as made above. However, I calculated the regulator dissipation directly from the circuit parameters assuming an input DC voltage of 7.9v. The thermal design spreadsheet is shown below.

Attachment:

Thermal Design LT1085.png

Here the maximum allowed thermal resistance junction to ambient is only 14.82˚C/W. This means that with the other parameters we need a heat-sink with a thermal resistance to ambient of no more than 10.3˚C/W. In this case for my prototype I chose the rather substantial Aavid Thermalloy 529802B02500G heat-sink with a thermal resistance = 3.7˚C/W. (http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=6190109) This gave me only 6.62˚C/W thermal margin so clearly this heat-sink is a good choice for this application. It should also be noted that if the trimmer is used to lower the 300B filament voltage to less then 5Vdc, the regulator dissipation will go up and the thermal design will have to be revisited.

This is it for the 300B heater design. Although I may also post an alternate design post for those who would like to try the build using a balanced AC heater approach. It’s not quite as clean as the DC heater option, but it is a much simpler circuit to be sure.

Well, this is the last of the circuit design work for the 300B stereo amp. I hope that people have gleaned some good information from everything posted on this thread. In my next post (probably tomorrow) I’ll post a summary with all the design schematics and the overall specifications for the amp.

Comments anyone?

This post has a file attachment. Please login or register to access it. Only Registered Members may view attached files.

Who is online

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum